O Canada, O Canada!

I feel like I haven’t posted in forever!  This week has been one crazy week as Steve and I finished up the last of our trip to the states.  I simply was having too much fun hanging out with friends who we haven’t seen in a while to break away and blog.  Life is more important than blogging sometimes!!

We flew into Gander, Canada from Charleston, NC last night on our way back to Ramstein, Germany.  It was icy and cold!  Plus, our flight made up most of the people in the airport.  It was VERY small.  I really wanted some french toast, but I settled on some cod nuggets with french fries.  There were no veggies or fruits available for purchase with the exception of apple juice.  The cod nuggets were great, don’t get me wrong.  However, with the combination of these and the breakfast of muffins and eggs from Cracker Barrel in the morning with no veggies/fruits, I was craving produce big time!!  Out on the the flight line, it was windy and sleeting on us while we walked back to the plane.  It was quite a temperature difference from the 80 degrees that we left in Charleston!  Let’s just say that I was not eager to return to Germany experiencing this weather in Gander.

With a total of 20 hours travel time, Steve and I were happy to finally be home in our own beds!!  As soon as we got out of the PAX terminal in Germany, we headed to the commissary.  Knowing that we would be gone for 3 weeks, I cleaned out our fridge before we left.  We loaded up on fresh veggies and fruits and dairy.

We started the chicken soup, took a nice bath together, ate a bowl of soup (which by the way, hit the veggie spot!), then took a nap.  We have done absolutely nothing all day!  It has been wonderful! 

If you want the recipe to this wonderful chicken soup, click here.  I changed it up today by adding in chicken stock instead of chicken broth (the commissary actually had stock this morning), and broccoli for extra veggies.

Here is what I have been up to the past few days:

Steve and I went on a wonderful 5 mile run up near Montreat College.  The fall colors were absolutely beautiful! I was tired!!  The elevation was killing me!

We drove around for a little while:

We ate an an amazing place called the Veranda Cafe. I ordered the turkey, cranberry chutney, raspberry mayonnaise ( I hate mayo, but this was amazing!), and brie Panini.  It was so good! with a side salad with homemade bleu cheese dressing…

We stopped by the Dairy King for nostalgia sake (Steve went to college at Montreat in the same area).  I ordered the chocolate cookie dough “blizzard.”  It was alright.  The ice cream was really icy and not really creamy.

I plan on working on my workout schedule for the next few weeks tonight, and planning next year’s race season.  I was planning on doing the Switzerland Half Ironman in June, but we have so many trips planned for next year,and I don’t want to set myself up for failure.  I have been toying over this for weeks, and the past few days have made it easy for me to finally decide on what to do.  Steve got some more confirmation of his next assignment.  I was concerned about doing the Half Ironman in June because there is a good chance that Steve and I will be moving in June to Spokane.  I was still going to train and race despite this.  I had not thought about all the traveling that we wanted to get done before we leave though.  Living in Europe is a wonderful opportunity, and I need to make sure that I take full advantage of that without feeling guilty when I don’t do a workout.  I still plan on completing in triathlons next year, but just not quite at that length.  I don’t want to underestimate the distance of a half ironman.  It really is nothing to enter into lightly and to be undertrained mentally and physically for.  There will be plenty of half ironmans and full ironmans in the future.  Can you tell that I’m still trying to tell myself that it is okay not to do this one?  haha  Basically, when Steve gets back from this deployment, we will have two months of traveling before we leave.  I will be missing weekends of training all over the place especially from April through June.

Anyway, one race that I am sure about is the Paris Marathon in April.  This will be my first marathon, and I’m stoked!

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